The Body of Martin Aguilera by Percival Everett Page A

show.”
    â€œRight.” Lewis hung up. It was six o’clock now. He grabbed a jacket and went out to his car. He got in and turned the key and nothing happened. He remembered he’d moved the battery to his truck. He got out and wondered if it would be faster to unhitch the trailer or get the battery. He laughed at his thinking. If the guys in the van were looking for his truck, then he should take the car. On the other hand, if they knew his car and his truck, then it would be better to be in the truck because it was more powerful and faster without the trailer. He shook his head as he began to undo the chains on the hitch. He pushed the trailer back and let it down.
    He slid and skidded his way down the dirt road to the highway, driving too fast. He came to his senses as he pulled onto the black top. He’d be of no use to Maggie dead or maimed himself. He drove into town and out the other side. He stopped for gas before the pass, watching the road while he pumped in case Maggie drove by.
    He made his way over the mountains and into the town of Española. It was here that he would really have to be alert. Maggie might pass him in this traffic easily. A maroon vehicle would not be the easiest to see. He was beginning to have the feeling that Maggie was all right, that after a drive all the way to Albuquerque and back he would find her at home worrying about him.
    He left Española and stopped along the side of the road outside of Santa Fe. He would have to think this through. There was not only a great deal of traffic in Santa Fe, but the freeway began here. And it was getting dark. There were just too many ways they could miss each other, so he decided to get through town as quickly as possible, drive to Cochiti and turn back.
    It was dark when he finished the loop and was again in Santa Fe. He continued toward home, still scrutinizing the roadside. Then, at Camel Rock, parked with the last tourists’ cars, was a small, maroon pickup. He stopped, got out and approached the vehicle. It was a Mazda. It was Maggie’s.
    He walked across the road to the Camel Rock. A woman was yelling at her husband that it was too dark to take a picture. A teenager had almost finished his climb to the top of the Camel’s head. Lewis called out.
    The highway patrolman didn’t seem all that concerned. Of course, it was not his friend who was missing. He walked around the truck, shining the beam of his flashlight at the tires, into the cab, at the grill. He studied the hood, then bent to see more closely.
    â€œWhat is it?” Lewis asked.
    â€œI don’t think she had any kind of engine trouble,” the officer said.
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    â€œLook at the dust on the hood. Hasn’t been disturbed. Even people who don’t know anything about cars open the hood when something’s wrong. If she had opened it, she’d have left prints, smudges in the dust.” The patrolman seemed pleased at his deduction.
    â€œSo, what do you think?”
    â€œI’d say she stopped here, met someone and left with that person or persons-unknown.”
    â€œWhat now?”
    â€œIf she doesn’t call or show up in twenty-four hours, she becomes a missing person.”
    â€œShe’s a missing person now,” Lewis said. “You find somebody’s car abandoned on a highway a hundred miles from her home and that somebody is also overdue after having told a friend when she expected to arrive and that somebody’s car has not failed her in any apparent way and that somebody is not missing? Is that what you’re telling me?”
    The patrolman leaned against Maggie’s truck. “I understand what you’re saying and you and I are well aware that each set of circumstances is unique, but the law can’t take into account every individual case. The rule says that a party must be missing for twenty-four hours before considered missing. In some places it’s